5 Things That Happened After the Rangers Resigned
by The Second Batgirl
Summary: They all cope with the power loss in their own way.


1. It had been another day that absolutely nothing had been accomplished. Some of the delegates at the World Peace Conference weren't even speaking to each other. There had been shouting in the hallways, and plenty of tears.

Jason sighed, and threw a punch at the punching bag that he and Zack kept in the corner of their shared quarters. Supposedly they kept it there so that they could keep in shape, but more and more it had been a way to work out their frustration with this whole conference.

They had joined up with the World Peace Conference because they had thought that it was a way to make a difference in the world. Not just by fighting monsters, but actually changing the way things were. But instead, it seemed like all they were doing was fighting.

At least with Rita, her monsters didn't resemble other people. Now, Jason and the others were faced with a different sort of monster, ones that were entirely of human creation.

He was really beginning to wonder if he had done the right thing by joining the World Peace Conference. When he was with the Rangers, you always knew when you had scored a victory. The monster was destroyed and everyone celebrated.

Here, Jason wasn't sure if they were making a difference at all. And even if they were making a difference, he wasn't sure that it was a positive one. If the next generation of the human race couldn't get along, how did they expect that the older generations could?

He had always told his students that you could settle things better with words than with fists. Jason just prayed that he was right.

2. _Selfish. Failure._ The words kept going through Kimberly's head as she approached the beam. She had done this routine so many times before that it should have been simple for her. She made it through without slipping off the beam, at least. That had been an improvement.

"Hart!" Coach Schmidt roared at her. "What do you think you are doing? I pull you out of obscurity, and now you fall apart on me? Is this really the best you could do? I don't even know why I bothered with you. You were nothing before, and you are nothing now." He walked off, muttering to himself in German.

Kimberly took a deep breath. He was wrong about that. She had been someone before. She had been a Power Ranger. She didn't bother to correct him; he would only think that she was talking about being the best gymnast in her town, or that she had been special in Angel Grove. None of that mattered to him, not here, not now.

But here, she was nothing. She had sacrificed everything back at home to come here and follow up her dream. She had chosen the Pan Globals over helping to save the world. She had given up her friends, her family, her boyfriend, her chance to be something, and for what? To be yelled at? To possibly not even medal?

Still, she was here now. She had made her choice, and she would stick to it. Steadying herself, she took a deep breath, and hopped back onto the beam.

3. Aisha sat on a boulder, watching the animals out on the savannah. The plague had mostly subsided now, and she had played a small but important role in ending it. Still, they would have managed without her. Now she had to try and figure out what to do with herself. It had been easy, after she had first gotten here, to pretend that the memories of Angel Grove were just dreams of another life. She had been able to throw herself into her work.

Now she had nothing to distract herself from the thoughts, the nagging feelings of doubt that she had made a very serious mistake. She had given up her powers, but for what? She wasn't needed here, she had never really been needed here. She had nothing here.

She could still have been a Power Ranger, and instead she was doing nothing with her life. She couldn't really understand why she had made the decision. It had seemed like the right thing to do at the time, and she was sure that Tanya was doing well. The Rangers didn't really need her either.

And realizing that just made her understand how useless she truly had been.

4. Years ago, they had plans. Adam, Aisha, and him. Rocky had believed it when the three of them had said that they would be best friends forever. They would go to college together. Maybe even rent an apartment together. It would always be the three of them, the three musketeers.

Then Aisha had left, and their tight-knit group had completely fallen apart. This was his punishment. He'd been so busy that he'd forgotten Aisha, and now everyone was forgetting him. College had started, and he was there by himself. He didn't even know where Adam had ended up. Not with him, that was all he really needed to know.

He'd been replaced by a child. Somehow, that was making it even worse. It was one thing to be replaced by someone his own age, or at least he would like to think that he would feel differently about it if he had been. But a child. That was just adding insult to injury.

That was another thing – he'd gotten injured. Practicing for a tournament. He hadn't left of his own free will like everyone else had. Jason, Trini and Zack were going off to save the world in a different way, and Kimberly was following a dream. Even Aisha was trying to do good with that plague thing in Africa. But him? He'd fallen in the ring. It hadn't even been a real fight. Just the result of his own stupidity.

He had never truly been good enough – the lone Red Ranger who wasn't the leader of the team. Just the comic relief, nothing special about him. His own friends had forgotten him.

He wasn't sure that they had ever truly cared. If they could forget him so easily, then he doubted it.

5. Dr. Tommy Oliver stared out at the group of kids assembled before him. He wondered briefly if he had ever been that young, although a tiny part of him was reminded that he'd been even younger than they were when he had first become a Power Ranger.

Conner, Kira and Ethan had all proven themselves. They had every right to call themselves Power Rangers now. But somehow Tommy was wondering if he had the right to do this to them – he knew what it was to lose the powers. He knew that eventually they would lose them, and the depression that would set in after, the feelings of loss and regret that would follow.

He wouldn't have traded his memories of the Power Rangers for anything. He had learned to live with it after all of this time. But he knew of so many others who were still caught up in the pain and bitterness that came from losing the powers that they had never truly recovered.

He had no right to do that to these kids. But the world needed the Power Rangers, and for better or worse, these were the ones who had stepped up to answer the call.

He just hoped that they would forgive him one day.


End file.
